A Choker And A Scalpel
by mandaree1
Summary: It's a well-known fact that Dinah Lance took a vow of silence after nearly deafening her entire first grade class. What very few know is just how long that vow of silence was, and even fewer, if any, know the story behind her choker.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice**

**Title: A Choker And A Scalpel.**

**Summary: It's a well-known fact that Dinah Lance took a vow of silence after nearly deafening her entire first grade class. What very few know is just how long that vow of silence was, and even fewer, if any, know the story behind her choker.**

**Warnings: Mentions of cutting (well, _a_ cut, really), and a blade (a scalpel.) Quite possibly O.O.C., with a lot of fan-theory involved.**

**Setting: Pre-canon; the tail-end in the first season.**

**Author's Note: So... It's my first time writing_ anything_ Black Canary. I admit it. My other Young Justice fic doesn't even mention her. But there really wasn't all that much about her in the archives (that I found, I haven't really dug all that deep), and I haven't seen any fics about her vow of silence yet, (Let me guess, there's plenty of explanation in a comic, somewhere, sometime, and I just don't know about it. Oh well. Fanfiction isn't about being canon.) so I thought I'd give it a whirl.**

**...**

Dinah Lance was a whopping seven years old when she almost deafened her entire first grade class.

Well, she says 'almost' and 'entire', but in all actuality three of her fellow students- one girl, two boys- didn't get back their hearing for _years_ afterward, and they were the main reasons of her guilt, not to mention the money they'd lost in court. Not that she would admit she deafened those three people out of complete carelessness, no matter who asked. Be it Batman or Ollie, her lips were sealed. It's not something_ anyone_, no matter who they were, would like to talk about, herself especially.

It was show-and-tell day, she remembered that. For the life of her, though, she couldn't remember _what_ she was showing. She walked to the front of the room with a bounce in her step, turned around, opened her mouth to speak-

And then one of the pets, a parakeet, is she remembered correctly, suddenly squawked as loud as it could and flapped its wings like they were on fire.

Dinah jumped and shrieked. A shriek wasn't the same as a scream, true, but at that age and stage, it was more than enough to trigger her newly developing powers.

All the glass in the building shattered. A few ceiling tiles fell. Her classmates screamed in terror (of_ her_, the girl with the 'cool' superhero mom and pretty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Now one had _ever_ been afraid of her before. The sensation made her sick to her stomach.) and dived under their desks. A few were even injured.

The teacher screamed at her for what felt like an eternity (why could _she_ scream without hurting anyone? Why was _she_ the unlucky one?), then sent her to the principal's office. The principal's voice shook as he called her mother, face pale.

They thought she was going to hurt them. The adults, the people she trusted so dearly, were _scared_ of her. Her chest tightened. Dinah stared at the floor.

Her mother tried to get the story out of her, but she wouldn't say a word. She watched her hands clench and un-clench, vision blurred with tears.

She didn't speak again until she was twelve years old.

* * *

><p>Dinah Lance was seven years old when she took a vow of silence. She was nine years old when she took a scalpel and tried to cut out her vocal chords.<p>

Looking back on that day, Dinah wasn't quite sure_ what_ she was thinking. She had an F in biology (science as a whole wasn't her strong suit. Which kind of sucked, because it was her favorite subject), no real clue where her vocal chords_ were_ (she'd thought they were closer to her chest then her chin. She thought wrong), and her only real backup plan, should something go wrong, was that she lived a few blocks away from the hospital. If she ran fast enough, she could get there _long_ before she bled to death, right?

Wrong. She knew that now.

She thought a cut to each side of her throat (careful not to hurt the windpipe. She _knew_ that, at least.) would hopefully damage things enough that the doctors would remove them. Or they would freeze. Or something. (she wasn't really good at thinking things through at that age, if you hadn't noticed.) The plan was foolproof, right?

Wrong. She should have known better than that.

Her mother came home to find her halfway through cutting the left side of her throat. The cut was only as long as her thumb, and a little thinner than a pencil, but Dinah was too afraid to try anything more than that. (And for a girl with high amounts of self-preservation skills, she sure was taking a few too many risks that day, wasn't she?)

Her mother immediately set into action, grabbing the scalpel out of her hands and rushing to grab some bandages and call 911, all the while berating her and fighting off exhaustion from returning from a week-long mission only to have to rush into action once again.

She never did manage to hurt anything important, she found out later. She didn't even calculate correctly. She _might_ have bled to death, had things gone according to plan, but she wouldn't have even _touched_ her vocal chords, even if she had aimed higher. Turns out they were around the same area as her windpipe. Whoops.

Somehow, even with a doctor at her side at least once a day and a prolonged visit to the hospital (per her mother's orders), the wound still managed to get infected. Nothing serious, but the longer a wound stayed unhealed and un-scabbed, the longer and more obvious a scar would stay/be. (And considering the fact that there was the chance that it could reopen every time she twisted her neck, that _wasn't_ a good thing.)

No one had told her that, back in the day. She found out a little too late.

It was around the time that she was discharged from the hospital that she started wearing chokers. Well, if she were being honest, she'd always wanted to wear them. The scar was just an excuse. They were stylish and pretty and if they covered up the unsightly scar from the scrutiny of her classmates (who hadn't, and never would, forgiven her for that incident in first grade), then it was all the better.

It wasn't about the scar now, however. She was a hero- she had scars practically everywhere at this point. They were part of the job description. And that was alright. She wasn't disgusted by them like she used to be. Dinah was proud; proud of every accident, every win, every loss, every doubt, every single one of them. They made her who she was, and she was strong and beautiful.

And she never doubted it. Not anymore.

(That, and her neck got cold if she didn't wear_ something_. Considering she'd been wearing choker's since she was nine years old, it was to be expected, she supposed.)

* * *

><p>Dinah was seven years old when she took a vow of silence. At age nine, she tried to cut her vocal chords out. And at twelve, she spoke once again. And when she said spoke, she meant she screamed.<p>

Five years is a_ long_ time for power to build up.

Her apprenticeship under her mother had had more than a few snags, but none as unsettling as the day she helplessly watched her mother get knocked out of a building and into a car.

She didn't think; she still doesn't remember moving in front of her mother and planting her feet more firmly to the ground. She_ did_ remember taking a deep breath, pushing all of her fears and her vow aside (and she _never_ broke promises), and screaming louder than she'd ever screamed before in her life.

The whole block fell down, but her mother was safe to fight another day, so at least _something_ good came out of it, right?

Two people were severely injured that day, but otherwise everyone had been evacuated during the attack. But she _had_ left two hundred or more people without a roof over their heads.

So... yeah. Not really feeling the aster that day.

"That's what happens when you suppress your powers, Dinah." Her mother chided as she carried her home, Dinah's head buried in her shirt. "It builds up. I _tried_ to warn you, but..."

_'Lesson learned, mom. You did your best.'_

"You know that your screams are only going to get more unstable and dangerous if you don't learn to control them, right?"

_'So you've said.'_

"Dinah."

_'Huh?'_

"Don't hide your voice. It's beautiful."

Dinah stared up at her for a long moment, tear tracks on her cheeks slowly beginning to dry, and nodded. "O-Okay."

Dinah Lance stopped talking at seven. She tried to stop her powers from coming to full fruition at nine. But, at age twelve, she gave in and let her voice fly.

A bird of death.

_The Black Canary._

Maybe there _was_ something to her mother's name, after all.

* * *

><p><em>Ow.<em>

For whatever reason, people seemed to honestly believe that Black Canary's throat was incapable of getting sore. They always stared whenever she asked for a throat lozenge or her voice was weak and cracked, as though spending most of her days running, fighting, and _screaming_ weren't supposed to affect it at all.

People seemed to honestly forget that she was, despite her powers, completely and utterly human. But that was okay; it was better all the way around if they thought she was as invincible as Superman. Less fear involved that way.

Thankfully, the League wasn't nearly as blind to her humanity. They all knew that, should she come stumbling through a Zeta Tube covered in bruises and rubbing her throat, it was best to make her some hot tea and give her plenty of space.

They also knew to clear off the sofa, because it was closer than her room, and that was where she was gonna crash. You could sit _on_ her for all she cared, just give her the couch and you were golden.

Oliver draped a blanket over her as he passed, looking just as bruised and beaten as she did. She smiled in thanks. He smiled back.

Good old Ollie.

She had just drifted into a state of half-consciousness when someone shook her shoulder. Dinah rolled over to face the TV,_ and_ her awaken-er. M'gann sheepishly held out a cup of tea.

"I read on the internet that it's good for sore throats."

Sure, some tea's were good for sore throats, she thought as she sat up, pulling herself over to lean against the arm of the couch, drawing up her legs so M'gann had a place to sit, but some weren't. It was a hit or miss sort of deal if you didn't do your research, and considering the martian's first attempts at baking, M'gann seemed to have the tendency to miss her first few tries.

Not that that was bad or anything. It gave her more reasons to practice harder and longer, and, as her instructor, Black Canary really couldn't complain.

The tea wasn't half-bad. Not what her first choice would have been when her throat was in this state, but it certainly was helping.

"Thanks."

M'gann winced at the crack in Black Canary's normally steady voice and glanced away. In its own way, that was more terrifying than seeing her bruised and bloody. It reminded her that, despite her resilience and strength, Black Canary was human, and, as such, had limitations and weaknesses. She wasn't immortal.

Black Canary, her temp den-mother, her trainer, her _friend_, could easily die one of these days. The reminder made her chest tighten painfully.

She put a hand on her knee. "Please, rest. You need to regain your strength."

She nodded and leaned back to comfortably watch the news flit across the screen.

"Black Canary?"

Dinah turned to look at her, piercing blue eyes making her fidget under their relentless stare.

"You've done this before, haven't you?"

Of course she has. At least once every few weeks from sore throat, a solid month every few years in memory of a fallen comrade or a mistake, for five whole years back when she was young and dumb, and so on.

But she knows what M'gann really means, and M'gann knows she knows.

Dinah merely stared at her. The look in her eyes said it all.

**Author's Note: So... I'm not a hundred percent sure what M'gann's question really means either. I think it was something along the lines of 'you've tried to hide who you really are before, haven't you?' A bit of a pick-up from their semi-famous therapy session.**

**This is only my second Young Justice fic. I honestly have no clue what I'm doing; right, wrong, or otherwise. But that's okay- it's always fun to enter new territory unarmed.**

**I should probably mention real quick that the last scene was set in season one, in the Young Justice headquarters.**

**No flames! Don't like don't read! Review!**


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